The Second Creation has been completed on the Cross, and now God rests in the tomb before his triumphal Resurrection. Let us praise God for his Creation, for his love for us that withstood sin in order to create us anew with even greater dignity than before. God rested on the 7th Day as he rests today in the tomb, the Jewish Sabbath Day. And tomorrow we celebrate a new Sabbath, a new Creation! Praise God! How great he truly is and how much he loves us!
Between 12 and 3 on Good Friday I try to keep silence and pray or read some spiritual things as is the common custom. That is what I have been doing. I took my three year old son on a ride hoping he would fall asleep, and thus was blessed by listening to a radio broadcast of the Good Friday service at St. Peter’s on Guadalupe Radio. It was very beautiful especially excerpts of Father Cantalamessa’s homily and the singing. Before listening to all of this I walked down to get into the car with my son. I was holding his hand helping him down the steps from our upstairs apartment. I felt God speak to me “I had a Son like this once.” I was filled with joy and thought of what God did for us in giving his only begotten Son on this very day. I then reflected on how God literally had a son like mine, when Christ was here on earth, when he was a baby, a little boy. I suppose Christ is always a little boy, always a young man, and always a man of courage dying on the Cross and being resurrected three days later as his human life echoes in an eternity of Divine Love.
But joy? I certainly had never felt so much joy between these holy hours on Good Friday before. And then later after reading some beautiful things online I was filled with great happiness, and I thought of Jesus still dying on the Cross, and I wondered about this joy.
Then I felt God was trying to tell me something: “there is no greater joy than the Cross.”
He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all. Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth. Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny? When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people, A grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, Though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood (Isaiah 53:2-9).
Catholicmemes.com
The Blessed Mother Receives The Eucharist From St. John
The below is from then Cardinal Bergoglio, and is related to my recent post Mary Is Most Fundamentally Our Sister.
We follow here that rule of tradition by which, with different nuances, “what is said of Mary is said of the soul of every Christian and of the whole Church.” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 57). Our faithful people have the true “Eucharistic attitude” of giving thanks and of praise. Remembering Mary, they are grateful for being remembered by her, and this memorial of love is truly Eucharistic. In this respect I repeat what John Paul II affirmed in Ecclesia de Eucharistia number 58: “The Eucharist has been given to us so that our life, like that of Mary, can become completely a Magnificat.”
This is hilarious! No backsies!
from Catholicmemes.com
Ever since Francis was elected I’ve been on a poverty binge, mentioning poverty in a whole bunch of posts. It has given me a structure for some thoughts I’ve had on the spiritual life in general. I want to write more about this. I have heard that Mother Teresa was wont to say that you weren’t really helping the poor, at least not in a way that helped you, until what you did for them actually started to hurt. In other words, until we actually become poor ourselves, we aren’t helping the poor in a meaningful way. I don’t think that means we have to become materially poor, but it is something to think about. It is all very complex as well as simple at the same time. I think we need to help the poor in such a way that allows us to recognize the wealth of material poverty. Material poverty is wealthy, in a way, because it reflects our spiritual poverty before God and opens us to his life, but also because it doesn’t present the temptations that material wealth does. On the other hand, it does present its own temptations. If one is poor and struggling for food and shelter one might resort to crime to make a living, despising their lot. So yes, we must work against poverty and to alleviate suffering, but we must do so in a way that recognizes its benefits as well as the problems it presents. And wealth? We must work against wealth as well in order to avoid its temptations to worldliness while embracing its benefits, which consist, first and foremost, in the ability to help others, to bless others as we have been blessed.
What is the most defining characteristic of the Divine Life, the mutual love of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? I think the obvious answer is gift. Giving and receiving of the Divine Persons is Love, and first and foremost, God is Love.
But the word gift seems abstract to me. It is an abstract definition of what can only be sufficiently described as a personal reality, a relationship that is experienced, not simply defined. In a theological sense we can accurately say that love’s defining characteristic is gift, but love is not experienced by abstract definition (not that abstract definition is not important for humans to find genuine love). What word sufficiently describes the reality of personal Divine Love? It would have to be a word that refers back to an experience at its very heart, and not one that seeks to define that experience in abstract terms.
I believe that word is tender. It seems to me that tenderness describes the Divine Life more than any other word (at least that I am acquainted with), not because it explains it in an abstract sense, but because it captures a personal reality, one that we tend to explain in abstract terms such as self-sacrificing, giving, receiving, or even love. Perhaps the connotation of the word love, in its most rich expression, refers back to this personal reality of tenderness.
But the word love still seems like an abstract quality assigned to a personal relationship. For example, to love God is to cherish him above all else, and to give yourself to him. This still seems like a rather abstract word even if we attach a great deal of emotional significance to it, even if it rightly achieves in us an attitude of tenderness toward God and neighbor.
What is tenderness? Tenderness is something that exists within the experience of intimate love between persons such as the love between the Divine Persons. I would even go so far as to say that tenderness helps us to understand the reality of Divine Love more than any other attribute. True tenderness can’t exist without other things such as truth, goodness, and beauty, and it exists less when other attributes are not present in a robust way. For example, we can say that love is tender until we are blue in the face, but it will not truly be tender if it is not first good and true. Love is not convincing if we seek tenderness without seeking the other attributes that relate to it, even if tenderness more than any other attribute, captures the personal reality of love.
Pope Francis, in his Installation Mass homily, has said that we should not be afraid of tenderness. Often we are afraid of tenderness because it involves intimacy and vulnerability, and we feel like if we make ourselves vulnerable we will get hurt or we will be misunderstood. This fear is natural and good in some instances; we cannot go forward seeking tenderness in relationships that do not manifest goodness, truth, beauty, and thus trust. We would be foolish to make ourselves vulnerable in a relationship that does not also include these other attributes. But there is one thing of which we can be very sure; our relationship with God, at least with regard to His part, already involves complete goodness, truth, beauty, and trust. We must, therefore, not be afraid to make ourselves vulnerable to God, and to seek to experience his tenderness, his gentleness, and thus his love. Once we come to focus on and experience this love we will be better equipped to love our neighbor even if our neighbor insists on perpetuating an incomplete or warped understanding of love and thus of tenderness.
Following is a reflection from then Pope Benedict on the Gospel for the Annunciation! Let us listen attentively to the voice of God, the whisper of God, during this Holy Week even as Mary listened at the Annunciation.
I greet you with deep affection and I would like to share a few simple thoughts with you, suggested by the Gospel for the Annunciation.
First of all, we are always struck by and made to reflect on the fact that this moment crucial to humanity’s destiny, the moment in which God was made man, is shrouded in deep silence. The encounter between the divine messenger and the Immaculate Virgin takes place completely unnoticed; nobody knows and nobody talks about it. It is an event which, were it to happen in our time, would leave no trace in the newspapers and magazines, because it is a mystery that happens in silence. What is truly great often goes unnoticed and peaceful silence proves more fruitful than the frenetic restlessness characteristic of our cities... the pressure that makes us unable to stop, to be calm, to listen to the silence in which the Lord enables us to hear his discreet voice.
Mary, on the day she received the announcement of the Angel, was in deep recollection and at the same time open to listening to God. In her there was no obstacle, no screen, nothing that separated her from God. This is the meaning of her being without original sin: her relation with God was free from even the slightest flaw; there is no separation, there is not a shadow of selfishness, but perfect harmony; her small human heart is perfectly “centered” in the great heart of God. So it is, dear brothers and sisters, that God’s voice is not recognized in noise and bustle; his plan for our personal and social life is not perceived by remaining on the surface but rather by descending to a deeper level, where the active power is not economic or political but moral and spiritual. There Mary invites us to come down and to put ourselves in tune with God’s action.
There is something else, something even more important which Mary Immaculate tells us when we come here, and it is that the world’s salvation is not the work of human beings — but it comes from Grace. What does this word mean? Grace means Love in its purity and beauty, it is God himself as he revealed himself in salvation history, recounted in the Bible and in its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Mary is called “full of grace” (Lk 1:28) and with her specific identity she reminds us of God’s primacy in our life and in the history of the world, she reminds us that the power of God’s love is stronger than evil … Mary tells us that however low man may fall it is never too low for God, who descended even into hell; however far astray our heart may have gone, God is always “greater” (1 Jn 3:20). The gentle breath of Grace can dispel the darkest cloud and can make life beautiful and rich in meaning even in the most inhuman situations.
And from this derives the third thing that Mary tells us. She speaks of joy, that authentic joy which spreads in hearts freed from sin. Grace brings true joy that does not depend on possessions but is rooted in the innermost self, in the depths of the person, and nothing and no one can remove it…
Mary’s joy is complete, for in her heart there is not a shadow of sin. This joy coincides with the presence of Jesus in her life: Jesus conceived and carried in her womb, then as a child entrusted to her motherly care, as an adolescent, a young man and an adult; Jesus seen leaving home, followed at a distance with faith even to the Cross and to the Resurrection; Jesus is Mary’s joy and is the joy of the Church, the joy of us all.
Mary teaches us to listen to the voice of God who speaks in silence; to welcome his Grace that sets us free from sin and from all selfishness in order thereby to taste true joy. Mary, full of grace, pray for us!
Dear Readers,
Today, March 25th, is usually the Feast of the Annunciation, but this year it was moved to April 7th because today is Monday of Holy Week. I am still treating this as an important day for my blog as it is named after the Annunciation, and I have several posts planned throughout the day. Please visit often and help me make this a great day for the blog. At noon I am posting a reflection on the Blessed Mother that is very close to my heart. I have also planned some other posts today that I have really enjoyed writing, and that I hope will be of some interest to you. I also hope these reflections might help us with our preparation for the Triduum in just a few days. It has truly been a whirlwind Lent so far for the Church and for all of us. I hope that we can enter more fully into the mysteries of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection as Holy Week progresses. By retreating into the depths of our deepest heart, where we meet with Christ Crucified, where he unites our wounds with his, we will be healed by the blood and water that flows forth from within him and through us.
In Christ through Mary,
Joe
annunciationblog.com 